#6: Osho

Short while after becoming acquainted with Zen, I picked up a book about Zen written by Osho. Immediately I recognized that this guy was awakened and started to read more books of his. Osho (born as Rajneesh Chandra Mohan Jain) was a born storyteller, a modern bard. He had a gift of speaking, putting spirituality into an entertaining form. I have never heard or read any boring things from him. In his youth Osho won many national debating competitions, he had very rational mind and later on used it to teach philosophy in university. Then he started giving speeches, taught meditation and little by little got crowd’s attention. The way he got that attention was very clever, he spoke about different religions, got audience from followers of those religions and all of them were delighted to listened to him even though his message was actually against all religions. But since he understood what religions were all about, he managed to get connection to people who in other circumstances would have been offended by the things he said.

Usually Osho is referred as a guru who people either hate or love. People’s first impression about him is usully negative. He had many rolls-royces, he talked about everything and crossed all borders when talking as nothing was taboo to him and already the way he looked caused suspicions. But those who did not turn away from first impression but went deeper, could not help loving him. He always had that playful glimmer in his eyes, always looking for opportunity to bring out a joke. He even once said that all those other things, which he talked about, were there only so he could illustrate a joke, not the other way around. Sometimes he went bit too far with his ideas but that happened rarely when comparing how much he talked about different things.

What were his key messages? Osho wanted us to enjoy life. To be able to just be, to do nothing and just enjoy this moment. To be able to laugh at everything. To be free of all systems, beliefs and traditions. To be able to be alone (with people and without people). To discover meditation, state of no-mind. To dance and dance until there was nobody dancing...

There are tons of great quotes from Osho, here are some of them:

Remain in wonder if you want the mysteries to open up for you. Mysteries never open up for those who go on questioning. Questioners sooner or later end up in a library. Questioners sooner or later end up with scriptures, because scriptures are full of answers. And answers are dangerous, they kill your wonder.

All the Buddhas of all the ages have been telling you a very simple fact: Be -- don't try to become. Within these two words, be and becoming, your whole life is contained. Being is enlightenment, becoming is ignorance.

What is needed is not something in which you can forget your loneliness; what is needed is that you become aware of your aloneness - which is a reality. And it is so beautiful to experience it, to feel it, because it is your freedom from the crowd, from the other. It is your freedom from the fear of being lonely.

Mind is repetitive, mind always moves in circles. Mind is a mechanism: you feed it with knowledge, it repeats the same knowledge, it goes on chewing the same knowledge again and again. No-mind is clarity, purity, innocence. No-mind is the real way to live, the real way to know, the real way to be.

If the whole existence is one, and if the existence goes on taking care of trees, of animals, of mountains, of oceans -from the smallest blade of grass to the biggest star -- then it will take care of you too. Why be possessive? The possessiveness shows simply one thing - that you cannot trust existence. You have to arrange separate security for yourself, safety for yourself; you cannot trust existence. Non-possessiveness is basically trust in existence. There is no need to possess, because the whole is already ours.

Existence is not a problem to be solved, it is a mystery to be lived. And you should be perfectly aware what the difference is between a mystery and a problem. A problem is something created by the mind; a mystery is something which is there, not created by the mind. A problem has an ugliness in it, like disease. A mystery is beautiful. With a problem, immediately a fight arises. You have to solve it; something is wrong, you have to put it right; something is missing, you have to supply the missing link. With a mystery there is no question like that. The moon arises in the night.... It is not a problem, it is a mystery. You have to live with it. You have to dance with it. You have to sing with it, or you can be just silent with it. Something mysterious surrounds you.

#5: Dogen

When I was thinking about my list of seven spiritual characters, I had tough time in choosing between Dogen and Bodhidharma. They are both famous Zen figures who differed from each other like a night and day. Dogen was good with words, profound talker and excellent writer. Bodhidharma, on the other hand, never wrote anything, was highly anti-social and could grumble even to the emperor. In the end I picked Dogen to my list, but they (and many other Zen figures) are both highly worth of knowing.

I became familiar with Zen (as a word) when once I was making a quick visit to bookshop, looking for something to read for a train trip. There I saw a book called “Zen” by Alan Watts. I picked it up and browsed it a bit. It looked just what I had already been encountering at that time so of course I bought it. Zen is something very pure. I would not call it religion - in fact I would not put any name or any classification on it. Its historical roots are in Buddhism but one could also say that it has always been here.

Dogen was relentless searcher of a truth. He realized the impermanence of all things very early as his mother died when he was just eight years old. He was not happy about the state of spirituality in his land. It had happened what always happens, religion becomes merely a custom. Words had become more important than what they represent (To point at the moon a finger is needed, but woe to those who take finger for the moon.). There were lots of temples full of rituals, ceremonies and chanting of sutras but Dogen knew that all such was just missing the point altogether. Later on when Dogen was on his journey in China, he finally met his own Buddha-nature. After that Dogen returned to Japan and seemed to have became less judgemental, less demanding. When people asked him what he learned abroad, he said “not much except a tender spirit”. Mountains were mountains once again.

Here are two great quotes from Dogen:

To study the Buddha Dharma is to study the self
To study the self is to forget the self
To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things.

The great way of the buddhas is profound, wondrous, inconceivable; how could its practice be easy? Have you not seen how the ancients gave up their bodies and lives, abandoned their countries, cities, and families, looking upon them as like shards of tile? After that they passed eons living alone in the mountains and forests, bodies and minds like dead trees; only then did they unite with the way. Then they could use mountains and rivers for words, raise the wind and rain for a tongue, and explain the great void…

#4: Siddhartha Gautama

The story goes like this: Siddhartha was born as a prince about 2500 years ago. He had arranged marriage when he was 16. His father, the king, tried to prevent his son seeing the suffering that was going on in the world. Of course he failed and Siddhartha saw first an old crippled man (aging), then diseased man (illness), then a decaying corpse (death) and finally ascetic (poorness). Seeing all that made prince to question life seriously. At the age of 29 when his wife was about to give birth to their first son, Siddhartha had finally made his decision. At one night he went to watch his sleeping, pregnant wife. He looked at her for long time and then left the palace, left his life as a prince. The search of truth had begun.

Siddhartha spent many years wandering and wondering. He went from teacher to master, from master to guru. Whenever he could not learn more, he moved on. Finally he could not find anyone to teach him more so he started life as ascetic. Then one day when he was sitting under the Bodhi tree, after many years of seeking, he “got” it. After that he was known as “the perfectly self-awakened one”. He stated that he had realized complete awakening and insight into the nature and cause of human suffering, along with steps necessary to eliminate it.

I was always open to all religions in my youth and Buddhism was (and is) the most logical religion. There is nothing supernatural in Buddha’s (Siddhartha’s) teachings, they all make perfect sense and I would be seriously interested to meet someone who would argue against those teachings. When I became more acquainted with spirituality, Buddhism was one of the major factors in that “process”. However, I saw that all religions were only vehicles and at some point one must leave the vehicle as it can take you only to certain point and the rest is up to you. That’s the fundamental thing that most religious people miss. You can not find the truth by following someone else (your mind’s interpretation of someone else’s teachings), you have to walk that path yourself. Buddha kept saying that nobody should believe anything just because it is said by some authority, even by himself. He also said that such questions whether there was a God or not were not really important – I totally agree with him.

Here are quite a few nice quotes from Buddha:

All that we are is the result of what we have thought. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him. If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him.

Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace.

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.

He who experiences the unity of life sees his own Self in all beings, and all beings in his own Self, and looks on everything with an impartial eye.

In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and then beleive them to be true.

It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.

Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful.

Work out your own salvation. Do not depend on others.